


The Third Brother

by weepingwillow



Series: Merlin Memory Month Fics [11]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 09:46:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10988391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingwillow/pseuds/weepingwillow
Summary: Merlin looked at the cup held out in front of him, in the young knight’s gloved hand.





	The Third Brother

Merlin looked at the cup held out in front of him, in the young knight’s gloved hand. The knight himself was an interesting boy - he reminded Merlin of Arthur in all the right ways. His name was Galahad, and he had led a quest across foreign lands to find the Holy Grail, the one thing powerful enough to save the kingdom from a slow attrition of enchantments. He was looking to the Knights of the Round Table for congratulations, for validation and reward, but Merlin could see only the cup. The markings on it, the shape, the colour.

 

It was gold, though dirty around the bottom. It was goblet shaped, with a long stem that Galahad clutched in his hand. From the stem grew a pattern of engravings. They looked different in the firelight, like they twisted and moved, but Merlin knew he had seen them before. He watched as Galahad set the cup down on the table and then, only then, did the memory come back to him like a vision.

 

There was another hand slamming the cup to the table, and then there was liquid in the cup, dripping from the rim. There were two cups, her remembered, two just like each other. Merlin remembered the day, the light too bright even for summer, the air too cold, and the endless sound of the sea. He remembered his terror, as Arthur drained the cup, the fear that it was poisoned, that Arthur would die too soon-

 

There had been two cups, then. One for each of them. Merlin wondered if this cup, the one Galahad had fought for, was its third brother or one of them come back into Merlin and Arthur’s lives. He wondered what that meant and, while Arthur showered his praise on the young knight, Merlin reached out and took it, held it, inspected it. He could not tell if it was the same one that Arthur had drunk from, if it was the one set in front of him, if it was new. He held the cup up to the light. It spared no clues.

 

But Arthur had drunk from one like it, unknowingly. And perhaps- Merlin allowed himself a little hope, a little curiosity. Perhaps, in doing so, he had been granted its power. Perhaps there was a destiny in that cup.

 

Arthur was embracing Galahad, having granted him some boon Merlin would not be able to name. He must not have recognised the goblet. That, or he was a much better actor than Merlin ever knew.

  
Merlin set the cup down again. Fate would tell, far too soon, the truth of it all.


End file.
